Rook opens on a rather cliché note, amnesiac hero, who's tabla-rasa for any personal memories but retains her instincts. From the Bourne Identity beginning to an X-men like world, Daniel O' Malley dances along being trite to actually clever. Its a mish-mash of supernatural beings, shadowy government organizations and a world unseen by the public, and schools for the unique of talent. While not a book about super heros and super villains , The Rook certainly takes cues from X-Men.

Susan Duerden is one hell of a voice actor, but she fails at the narrative. Her voice switches into a repetitive cadence, strangely melodic and robotic, that sounds strangely like a high level text to speech algorithm. The words are there but the inflection is the same, regardless of content. Its strange and annoying. Early in the book, when narrative parts extend minutes, I found myself annoyed, which is unusual for me as I'm not the most demanding of listeners. Fortunately, as more characters are introduced, Susan Duerden spends less time in her repetitive robo-speak.

That said, for a rookie writer, Daniel O' Malley proves himself a worthy read. About the only complaint I had is it seemed that every character of substance was described as being "Beautiful"... how many beautiful people can occupy a single novel? ;)

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. Actually, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to listen to it. I bought this audiobook through an Audible sale and didn’t really know what to expect (although one reviewer’s reference to Harry Dresden definitely piqued my interest). So for a few months it just sat in my library until the guilt at buying a book and not listening to it finally got to me and I decided to give it a chance. Five minutes later, I was hooked!

When Myfanwy (pronounced like Tiffany with an “M”) Thomas wakes up without any memory of who she is or how she wound up in a London park surrounded by dead men wearing suits and latex gloves, she finds two letters in her jacket pocket that were written to her by the jacket’s previous owner -- who happens to be the former owner of Myfanwy’s own body! I say “former” because we learn, through a series of subsequent letters, that Myfanwy’s memories and personality have been erased, and the person who opens Myfanwy’s eyes in that park is not the same Myfanwy who closed them moments before. Oh yeah, it also turns out that the person responsible for Myfanwy’s memory loss is one of her co-workers. But not just any co-worker: the “bad guy” is another high-ranking, supernaturally gifted person (like Myfanwy herself) working for the Chequy, a super-secret organization dedicated to protecting Queen and Country against paranormal threats (like dragons and houses made of slime).

Does this sound like the script to an extremely cheesy B-movie? Yes! But that’s because I am not as talented as Daniel O’Malley, who has managed to turn what should be a played-out-supernatural-who-dunnit into a fresh, imaginative, and FUN debut novel. For me, this book embodies the very best of escapism fiction: it’s clever, the characters are well-developed, the plot moves briskly without feeling rushed, and you can get lost in the story for hours without losing yourself to the story (which is a good thing when you have a job!)

Finally, I know others reviewers have complained about the narrator. Personally, I thought she was excellent! I would, however, recommend listening to the preview. The narrator’s voice and cadence remain consistent throughout the book, so if you enjoy the preview, there’s a good chance you will enjoy this narrator. If not? Then I would highly recommend buying this book in print, because it really is that good!

The story is a fun blend between Harry Potter, James Bond, and British humor. The ending is a little weak but the story lends itself to another novel.

The narrator is capable of doing many voices but elected to be incredibly annoying with the main character and reading the story with no inflections. I highly recommend you listen first to a sample to see if you can handle it as it is like nails on a blackboard.

I really did like this book! I wanted to like it a lot more, but two things brought it down. First, the narrator is really good, but during the parts of the book with no characters speaking, she gets very sing-songy and it drove me just a bit crazy (not hard to do) if I thought about it too much. I can't find it anywhere, but I swear she also did some narration on The Golden Compass audiobook. I like everything about her except that every sentence has to end going....uuuuup. This was actually more minor than the second thing.

The second thing I couldn't get past was the antagonists, the grafters. Their capabilities are supposedly based on pure science, but they can do things that go far beyond the people who have super abilities! I LOVE science, so I was just unable to accept this concept of a totally secret group of people who have the scientific abilities attributed to them in the book. If the grafters had some supernatural leader that was channeling supernatural energy to make all of their stuff possible, I could even buy that, but to say it was pure science, bah! To say there were people who centuries ago could men who could craft flesh and organs with capabilities beyond what we have available even today, nope. For me, this all but ruined a really good book and since it is clear that they will have a part in a sequel, I doubt I'll be buying that either.

Another of those science-fiction-set-in-familiar-places-and-times like Halting State. Not centered on space or jump gates -- not even sure it is really science fiction.....but it is GOOD fiction and certainly not based in what we normally think of as reality. Unlike my usual reviews -- I'm not going to say a lot more about this one. No comparisons or discussion. You should listen to it because someone put an awful lot of thought and work into making this fascinating. They did quite the job of it. I also liked the narrator generally, but she has an intra-sentence rhythm that I found hard at times -- just saying for next time.

The book itself is ingenuis and I'm sure will be quite fun but the reader's speech pattern made me crazy. She has a lovely voice but the sing-song style with a lift and then drop at the end of Every. Single. Sentence. It was more than I could bear after a while.

I would recommend the story, but i am having trouble finishing it because of the cadence of the narrator.. it's level level up level level up is very annoying to me, but perhaps someone else wouldn't be bothered by it.

How could the performance have been better?

less artifice and more natural speaking. When she did characters, they were ok, but the general 3rd person narration was so repetative and sing-song, it just made me forget what she was saying.

The Gene Mutation (i.e., superpowers ala X-Men) "a day in the life of" with an amnesiac main character was an interesting premise, but in the end failed to deliver. There were some stellar reviews, and an interesting premise, but in the end I felt that the story moved slowly, and the climax wasn't worth the 17 hours to get there.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a fan of YA, and this book verges strongly on YA.

I enjoy mystery/thrillers and sometimes enjoy a little scifi mixed in with the story. This one was just the right mix. If you have seen and like the new series Alphas, you will really enjoy this book. I liked the main character right away and was drawn right in to the story within the first 5 minutes (another requirement for a really good book). I had a hard time turning it off when I was listening as the story moved right along with enough twists and turns to keep you wondering what would happen next. If you want something a little different, this one is a great choice.